Allotments 4 All

I just read this in carol klein's email newsletter:

October is a good time for digging over vacant areas of the vegetable plot, as the approaching cold weather may help to improve the soil structure by breaking down large clumps into crumbly particles. After digging, any vacant ground can be covered with black polythene to prevent re-colonisation by weeds, or smearing of the surface structure by rain-splash (this is known as 'capping').

Wouldn't covering in plastic keep the soil warm and therefore stop the cold weather do its thing?  ???

only if you leave it in great big clumps.............

QuoteWouldn't covering in plastic keep the soil warm and therefore stop the cold weather do its thing?

Yes!!

Apart from breaking up large clumps the cold weather can kill off some weed seed and pests.

Thats been the problem this last couple of years the weather has been relatively mild and not killed off the weed seed & pests.

So to add plastic will aggravate this situation in fact it makes the ideal habitat for germinating weeds and hibernating pests e.g slugs & snails.

There is time enough to put plastic down to warm up the soil a few weeks prior to planting out. This way you have a chance of getting the best of both worlds.

In fact a very cold winter is on my Xmas list!!

uo oh,we are currently (still) de weeding out plot,and have been covering it with a black kind of meshy fabric,its kind of plasticky raffia,quite small weave,are we going dreadfully wrong with this choice of covering? love rach x

That makes sense to me, TG. What about covering with an organic mulch (spent hops in my case)? Would you leave that until the spring, too? (I've done one patch already but will save the rest if so)

QuoteWhat about covering with an organic mulch

I think the jury is out on this one, its a big talking point on our plots.

We have the 'no dig' gardener who swears by mulching.

The gardener who doesn't want to winter dig so mulches then rotovates in the spring.

Me I prefer to get it dug in in the autumn and let it soak up all that winter throws at it.

Another benefit I get is; my plot is ready for planting out with minimum effort when my plants are ready, the others are scratting about digging and preparing often in bad weather and soggy ground at planting out time.

The choice is yours!

We do an autumn weed, then dig then mulch with loads of manure.  Leave till spring and the worms and (hopefully) cold weather do their work while we sit in the warm and plan next year. In the spring it's an easy fork over and voila ! the beds are ready.

Quote from: elvis2003 on September 28, 2007, 19:50:32
uo oh,we are currently (still) de weeding out plot,and have been covering it with a black kind of meshy fabric,its kind of plasticky raffia,quite small weave,are we going dreadfully wrong with this choice of covering? love rach x

If the material you are using does not exclude the light then I think its the wrong material.........but thats only my opinion.

thanks lots for all the replies...i guess the main thing is that we are getting all the weeds out,think maybe we will do a control experiment on it,ie use a few different types of covering,and see which works out best! x

I heavily dig over and manure the bed that's going to get the potatoes. The others I tend to just fork over and weed, then cover with composted manure, and a layer of weed suppressant fabric then let the worms do the work for me.